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From the Geniuses Who brought you "I Want to Rock and Roll"

There was some really good music in the 80s. Of course, sometimes it was hard to hear because it was drowned out by Guns & Roses, Pantera, and so forth...but there WAS some good music.

There was also some music that might have been good but it is hard to tell. One thing that is easy to tell is the brains behind it weren't. I mean, they weren't exactly brains. I wasn't there, but I imagine the way some of the songs were written must have gone something like this:

"Hey, I have a great idea for a song lyric. Listen: "I want to rock and roll all night."

General chorus of approval ensues, then someone says, "But you need to party, too."

"Okay, so I will add 'and party every day'."

"Wow, that is good. I want to rock and roll all night, and party every day. It is catchy, it represents our lifestyle. But we need a second lyric."

Silence.

More silence.

A lightbulb appears over the head of someone.

"I have it! Listen to this awesome lyric. I want to rock and roll all night and party every day."

General chorus of approval. "That is awesome! And it goes well with our first lyric!"

Silence ensues.

More silence.

A lightbulb appears over the head of someone.

"I have it! Listen to this awesome lyric. I want to rock and roll all night and party every day."

General chorus of approval. "That is awesome! And it goes well with our first two lyrics!"

This goes on for quite some time until at last you hear,

"I have it! We could put in something about wanting to rock and roll and party!"

"Yeah, we could say, 'I want to rock and roll all night and party every day".

"Wow! Awesome! And it would go really well with the other 14 lyrics we have!*"

Of course, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are absolute lyrical masters compared to the horrific, ear-drum busting anthem Paradise City. Among its 14+ repetitions of the awesomely intellectual Take me down to the very last city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty are the even MORE banal and insipid (if that is even possible) "verses".

Of course, Guns and Roses is worse than Kiss because, while neither band inspired with their ability to play the instruments they chose, G&R made heavier use of distortion to mask their ineptitude. As Paradise City makes its nonsensical, repetitive way towards the not-close-enough end of the travesty they call a song, they play faster and faster with the result that between the distorted hack-chords and wailing, cracking, screaming voice the song more closely resembles white noise than music.

Thankfully, songs such as these do a wonderful thing. They make us have a greater appreciation for Tiffany.

* Kiss purists will object there are more than 15 lyrics in the song. I can assure you that, when listening to this piece of trash, it really doesn't sound like there are ANY other lyrics. In fact, I conservatively estimated they said that 49 consecutive times in the song. The "verses" are so short and equally crappy that they are not noticed by the casual listener who is blindsided by this more than once in a life time.